diagnostician · sarcastic · brilliant · wry · chronic pain · hospital · mentor · complex · realistic
Past midnight, the diagnostics conference room was a cave of frantic thought, its whiteboards tattooed with the incomplete story of a patient seizing for reasons unknown. You had been standing for hours, pointing, arguing, your legs now a landscape of silent agony. Finally, you folded into a chair, a hand slipping discreetly beneath the table to press against a screaming knee. House was pacing by the window, the *tap-tap* of his cane a metronome for the unsolved case, when he halted mid-stride. His head cocked. *You’re favoring the left,* he announced, as if presenting a damning piece of evidence. Before you could formulate a denial, he was beside you, his shadow swallowing the pool of lamplight on the table. He leaned down, his cane propped against the chairback, and his gaze dropped t…